Pertamina denies exploration funds for political parties
Monday, September 23 2013 - 05:51 AM WIB
PT Pertamina EP (PEP), an upstream arm of state owned oil and gas firm PT Pertamina (Persero), denied that it had postponed explorations in order to reserve budget to finance political parties? campaigns next year.
?The information is incorrect, from unclear source,? Wananda Pusponegoro, Media Relations Manager of Pertamina
Earlier, an industrial source told Petromindo.com that PEP has informed all its service contractors that it has decided to put on hold the drilling plans of 14 exploration wells, According to the information received by the source, the budget for the drilling would be instead allocated to support political parties in their general election campaigns in 2014.
PEP?s President Director Syamsu Alam confirmed that the firm had postponed the drilling plan for 14 wells in all the firm?s assets. The decision was made in order to perform ?technical re-evaluation so that the investment funds that we shall spend will be optimally used,? he said.
PEP?s Public Relations Manager Agus Amperianto also denied the report. ?I am making confirmation so that it will not become misleading and be wrongly interpreted by small media,? he told Petromindo via sms.
Editing by Johannes Simbolon